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> In their book "Freakonomics" Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt explain, among other things, the odd economic behavior that guides many drug dealers. In o
by kahawe 15y ago
> In their book "Freakonomics" Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt explain, among other things, the odd economic behavior that guides many drug dealers. In one gang they described, the typical street-corner guy made less than minimum wage but still worked extremely hard in hopes of some day becoming one of the few wildly rich kingpins. This behavior isn’t isolated to illegal activity. There are a number of professions in which workers are paid, in part, with a figurative lottery ticket. The worker accepts a lower-paying job in exchange for a slim but real chance of a large, future payday.
This example is indeed listed in "Freakonomics" and was contributed to the book by a sociologist called Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh. What this paragraph fails to say, however, is that the chapter in the book makes it clear the "soldiers" slinging on the corners either had the option of taking a minimum wage job working 9-5 plus overtime or taking the minimum wage "job" slinging and have a chance at making it big time PLUS the gang provided certain social services and security to their members and their families - something the minimum wage 9-5 job also did not have to offer. So while they were clearly in a tight spot, they took the more economic of the two options. And the guy leading the gang was described as very capable, social, if I remember correctly he even had finished school or was working on a degree and was capable of handling all financial matters of the gang. So his skills, qualifications and killings got him the job but ultimately his performance kept him there - otherwise he would have been replaced long ago. Clearly he had something more to offer over his soldiers.
A point this chapter was making was that these jobs take practically zero skill, have no entry-level barriers and there is an abundance of people willing to do them who don't have other options - that's why they the pay was so absolutely terrible while the job of being injured or killed on the job was ten-folds more likely than the most dangerous, "regular" job in the States.
- kahawe 15y agoI am sorry, the last part was of course meant to say "that's why the pay was so absolutely terrible while the chance of being injured or killed on the job was ten-folds more likely than the most dangerous, "regular" job in the States."
- jeffcoat 15y agoI picked up Venkatesh's book _Gang Leader for a Day_ on the strength of the work cited here ... and ended up throwing it out. He's not an economist: he has a very clear idea of which jobs are useful in a society and which jobs aren't, and no interest at all in what the market has to say. I'm sure he has useful data, but everything he writes goes through that filter, and there's no way to trust what he says about people dealing drugs, because he makes it so clear that everyone doing anything outside the law is Evil, and so everything they do is tainted.
- kahawe 15y agoInteresting... I just knew him through "Freakonomics". Well, I think he provided the information and the data used in that one chapter and Levitt/Dubner ultimately wrote it, probably also for lack of better sources. How many scientists hook up with gangs and prostitutes? To be fair, Venkatesh is a sociologist. I guess both (all three) of them are leaning more toward the "infotainment" side of things in those works - after all, they want their books to sell and I wouldn't be surprised if he absolutely had to make that point "it is evil" so often, otherwise the bible thumpers/moralizers might have gotten to him that he promotes gangs? Levitt/Dubner had to go out of their way to make clear they aren't trying to promote abortions in their "legalizing abortions reduced the crime rate" chapter... which I found extremely peculiar, given that it was nothing but an analysis and a convincing theory for the data at hand.